Councillor critical of Hospital provision for smoking employees.

10.28.00pm GMT Thu 7th Dec 2006

Councillor critical of Hospital provision for smoking employees.

Lib Dem Councillor Christine Stanfield was shocked to see groups of cold employees smoking outside gate of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary in the gale.

Employees of NHS Trust are now forbidden to smoke anywhere on the Trust property - grounds included apparently.

Every lunch time and break time there is this band of outcasts huddled by the gate, having a smoke. These people have no where else to go. They block the pavement, give a bad example to passing children, leave litter and tend to make local residents feel uncomfortable.

Is this an example of a caring employer?

While we all know that smoking is bad for the health and costs the NHS millions in treating the resulting medical conditions - smoking is not, per se, against the law.

The hospital has reasonably large grounds, is it quite beyond the bounds of possibility to put a couple of benches and a bush or two behind the wall for these employees, who are addicted to their cigarettes and need or want to smoke in their breaks?

This issue is important as next year there will be no smoking in any public place. Both Kirklees Council and employers need to think about where these people are to go or all the doorways and pavements will be blocked by smokers, and smoking will suddenly become much more visible than it is now. To visitors, the appearance of our towns will be that of permanent industrial unrest with pickets always on the streets.

This new legislation will of course protect people in the working environment, and general health, but will it really prevent many from taking up the habit?